"Kids will get every Saturday off soon" good or bad for those of us in Hagwons?

[cork_boi]

Saw this today on Joonang daily and Korea times websites.Looks like more time in Hagwons for the kids. And dare I say It Saturday teaching for Waygook teachers..I know that the contract states Monday to Fridays, but we all know how from time to time certain requests and pressures are made. Any opinions on the topic?

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2937599
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/06/117_88925.html

[Super English Teacher]

I also wonder how this will affect teachers in the public schools. For the most part our hours are set based on the contract...but there is quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to adding extra teaching hours. If the students are expected to cover the same amount of curriculum but in less days...well, it will be interesting to see how this all works out.

[Paul]

My honest opinion is that this will not work and be revoked after a year or two. I've seen it happen in Japan.

The way it went down there was that they phase out Saturdays in a bunch of districts, but the parents, now lumbered with extra childcare duties and inflexible work schedules banded together and kept claiming X Education was inferior or not world class and needed more hours for various subjects until they had to bring Saturdays back.

If this works for Korea, and hagwons do not fill the gap, then its great for the students and Korean public school staff, so I'd welcome it. For English hagwon workers, ultimately I cannot see it making an immense difference. Remember, in the worst case scenario (for the kids) all those freed up hours will be distributed across the entire Hagwon Rainbow from piano to poodle grooming. Just depends how market forces skew the weekend availability of some varieties over others.

[mellow-d]

My head teacher (at ps) said that no Saturdays would mean a longer school year which is ridiculous considering the amount of time wasted after exams and before the vacations. Seriously, there are four weeks after the exams (in total) where none of the teachers teach any of the curriculum. That would be a good time to make up the time, I'd think.

[Vincent]

It was on the news this morning that 67% of parents were in support of it.

Teachers are the only civil servants who work more than 5 days x 4 weeks for their salary.

The parents also don't really have a leg to stand on in complaining beyond calling the teachers babysitters because the actual contact hours/teaching hours remain unchanged. It effectively means the teachers will end up losing vacation days 1 or 1/2 for each saturday not worked.

Another thing to consider is that most schools are open every Saturday with teachers who exchange their Saturdays for more vacation time during the downtime periods. This is generally for parents who are working/low income style.

 So I can see a lot of the more affluent parents upping hagwon hours but beyond that a lot of the surplus kids will be handled by each public school on a voluntary leave exchange system / payment.

[sophia]

My head teacher (at ps) said that no Saturdays would mean a longer school year which is ridiculous considering the amount of time wasted after exams and before the vacations. Seriously, there are four weeks after the exams (in total) where none of the teachers teach any of the curriculum. That would be a good time to make up the time, I'd think.

Right on.

The 4 weeks are just a shame. It almost seems like it's quantity over quality. I also know of some elementary schools that bring the kids to the river and play sports and camp out. I don't know if abolishing saturday school is going to make a big difference in educational content.

I really hope they don't make the school year even longer, it's only june and they can barely focus longer than 4 min.

[SUTIIVE]

I'm in a High School, and I think this is great news. I don't teach a Saturday but not a weekend has gone by I don't think of how much it sucks that all these kids, in the prime of their lives, are being denied a something as simple as a two day weekend! 

I totally agree that the parents might not share this mentality, however, it's a pretty poor show by the parents to be thinking "Ugghhh, you mean I have to look after my kid more?!".  When I was living in Japan I was very aware of how the school is pretty much a second home for children where teachers take on a Quasi-counselor/parental role because parents were always so busy working and so on.  But by the time children hit 13 or so, they should have the freedom to enjoy a full two days out of school.  Even if they are studying, it's good for them to NOT be at school for 2 straight days.  Clear the head and all that.

For the teachers too, I have never understood why ANYONE in this country would want to be a teacher.  You work harder than an office worker, at High School at least and you can't get drunk as much to compensate either because you have 40 beady eyes on you the next day.  Teachers must be very happy to hear the news, as long as they are not in it's abscense required to do something else.  I can imagine my school, which is very academic, will fill the time with "voluntary" extra classes, that every student will attend at risk of being socially excluded. 

Poor students and teachers, I feel guilty how easy (any by easy, I mean NORMAL in the rest of the world) my hours are. 

[Reader]

I expect that hagwons will try to schedule more Saturday classes.  Korean public school teachers will relish the extra time off, but they will probably be tasked to do more training at that time, so I wouldn't expect they would get every Saturday off.  Parents are the ones who are either going to feel it's a joy or another stressor.

[dlongstaff]

I also wonder how this will affect teachers in the public schools. For the most part our hours are set based on the contract...but there is quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to adding extra teaching hours. If the students are expected to cover the same amount of curriculum but in less days...well, it will be interesting to see how this all works out.

I don't really think it will affect public school teachers all that much since we do not teach on Saturdays anyway. Adding more classes to our weekly schedule wouldn't really be necessary since we only teach each class once a week,  and extra classes would still be scheduled whenever.    Also, using the Joongang article, the total number of days will stay the same: dropping from 205 to 190 isn't really losing 15 full school days; they're using the term "school day" to refer to both half and full days equally.  So, if those "15 days" are really referring Saturday classes, which are only half days, then the 8 full days they cut from the summer and winter vacation schedules would balance any losses out.  So, they ostensibly will be getting the same number of instructional hours, though perception being reality, a lot will see it as losing something they're really not.

[kagayuzen]

Well, like most people said, this won't affect hagwon teachers as much. It just means that we don't have to have a different schedule for that particular Sat that they go to school (at least in my hagwon yeah). If anything, it would make the rest of us happy that we don't have to have different shifts on Sats. and we can have consistency.

[tunes522]

I also wonder how this will affect teachers in the public schools. For the most part our hours are set based on the contract...but there is quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to adding extra teaching hours. If the students are expected to cover the same amount of curriculum but in less days...well, it will be interesting to see how this all works out.

further down the page it mentioned that four days of summer AND winter vacation would be cut..(but will still be long enough to give foreign teachers their vacations of course...basically just makes our camps shorter)...honestly...Wednesday in Korea are like a half-day anyway...and Saturdays every other week are half-days...so in theory, wouldn't making the kids go the full days on Wednesdays solve the problem of cutting classes on Saturdays anyway?

the most important thing happening here are that parents are also now getting five-day work weeks...now if Korea would only discover the benefit of a 40-hour work week, we might be onto something here...

[Yu_Bumsuk]

I wouldn't be surprised if this gets delayed a few times. If it does happen, I suspect academic HSs and some MSs and ESs will use the opportunity to put on extra tuition classes on Saturdays - basically the school serves the role of a hagwon with various sources skimming off the funds.

As for regular hagwons, the small ones are really going to be able to capitalise on this. Most already do run some kind of Saturday programme and now there'll be a much more consistant demand. They'll have trouble finding waegs who want to play along but hagwon KETs will be screwed.

[steves]

I wonder what this quote from the article means:

"'But the total hours of mandatory classes will be maintained under the new system, and students will have more classes during the weekdays or on school holidays, such as field trips or school events,' Lee said."

More classes on school holidays?  I hope this doesn't mean special Children's Day English classes or something like that.

[Jozigirl]

My (high) school was informed at the start of this semester that as of next semester we will have a 5 day school week. The Saturday will be self-study but there'll be not official classes (except the local government sanctioned ones) on Saturdays. 

As far as I know, our school day will be the same number of hours although our timetable will be changing considerably - it hasn't been clarified yet as to how exactly the timetable will change.

[Yu_Bumsuk]

Most MS and HS have at least two blocks free at the end of the day which can be used, amongst other things, for make-up lessons. These will likely all be filled with lessons that would otherwise have been made up on Saturdays.

[infogoddess]

At my Elementary School there are no classes on Wednesday after lunch and Saturday is just a half day of school.  I expect that Wednesday will simply become a full day of school.  I have to teach two Saturdays (7 hours each day) a month at our English Station so I am hoping that it will be dropped because it really puts a damper on my weekends although the extra pay is very nice.

[Janitor]

I just had a discussion about this with my co-teacher who was depressed at the parents reactions to this on some of the Korean forum sites that she visits. Her feelings on the situation are similar to mine in the way that the students (and Korean teachers) need that day to relax and the the parents simple don't want their children at home any longer then they need to.

She elaborated that many of the comments directed at the teachers were stating that the parents felt that the teachers were lazy and were asking moronic questions like "how hard is it to play with kids all day?" Some of the parents on these sites were even demanding that the teachers lose their paid vacations because of this new law.

Of course, these are all just netizens and we all know how worked up they get. However, I feel that this sheds light on the feelings of parents towards the Korean teachers. I personally feel that the hogwans may or may not add classes but I know that the parents will be pressuring the schools to be open on the weekends so that the kids can go and study and not have to hang out around home.

[confusedsafferinkorea]

I just had a discussion about this with my co-teacher who was depressed at the parents reactions to this on some of the Korean forum sites that she visits. Her feelings on the situation are similar to mine in the way that the students (and Korean teachers) need that day to relax and the the parents simple don't want their children at home any longer then they need to.

She elaborated that many of the comments directed at the teachers were stating that the parents felt that the teachers were lazy and were asking moronic questions like "how hard is it to play with kids all day?" Some of the parents on these sites were even demanding that the teachers lose their paid vacations because of this new law.

Of course, these are all just netizens and we all know how worked up they get. However, I feel that this sheds light on the feelings of parents towards the Korean teachers. I personally feel that the hogwans may or may not add classes but I know that the parents will be pressuring the schools to be open on the weekends so that the kids can go and study and not have to hang out around home.

I guess this is not just a Korean parents attitude only, it happens the world over. It SUCKS big time that parents have this attitude and makes me wonder why they bothered to have children in the first place.

I am the father of two lovely children who are 24 and 26 now and I can tell you there was NEVER one moment when I didn't want to be with them ever.  I loved having my children around me and we did everything together and when I am back home, we still do.

So to those parents world-wide who have this sucky attitude, you should be ashamed of yourselves, enjoy your children because all too soon they are grown up and leading their own lives.

[Yu_Bumsuk]

At my Elementary School there are no classes on Wednesday after lunch and Saturday is just a half day ... I have to teach two Saturdays (7 hours each day) a month

How can you teach seven hours in a half day?

[confusedsafferinkorea]

At my Elementary School there are no classes on Wednesday after lunch and Saturday is just a half day ... I have to teach two Saturdays (7 hours each day) a month

How can you teach seven hours in a half day?

AND..... Why are you teaching on a Saturday? It is in breach of contract.